


Choice

by swiftwinchester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Human Castiel, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Vampires, post Season 8 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 20:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swiftwinchester/pseuds/swiftwinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is taken by a nest of vampires, and Sam and Dean must find a way to save him. Cas is having a hard time adjusting to being human and is afraid that he isn't able to protect Dean like he did before the angels fell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own these characters or anything... you know the usual disclaimer.
> 
> I wrote most of this really quickly so it'll probably seem like it's moving a little too fast but oh well

“Dean. Look.”  
Sam whispers close to Dean’s ear. It is just past 1 AM and the sliver of the moon hanging high in the sky sheds just enough light over the two brothers for them to see each other. They are hiding in the trees a few hundred feet away from an abandoned farmhouse. Sam shifts uncomfortably, trying not to crunch the brittle leaves under his feet. 

He points to the farmhouse. “There.”

Dean looks to where his brother is pointing and notices a dark shape moving towards the door. “Yeah, that’s definitely it.”

They had been tracking a nest of vampires for nearly two weeks. When they’d gone out earlier that night to hunt, Castiel had insisted on coming with them. Dean had protested, telling Cas that he didn’t know what he was doing and he couldn’t risk getting hurt or killed.

“I’ll be fine, Dean,” he had said. “You don’t need to keep protecting me. In fact, I’m supposed to be the one protecting you.”

It had been a little over three months since the angels had fallen. Cas, like most of the other fallen angels, had taken quite some time to adjust to being human. He still struggled with some things, but he was improving. It was painfully obvious by looking into his eyes that he had lost all hope of returning to heaven or regaining his grace.

Sam and Dean had ended up giving in and letting Castiel come with them. Cas had been fine for an hour or so, until he had suddenly been pulled away into the darkness by some other creature. The brothers had heard his screams and begun to search frantically for their friend. After a few minutes of this, they had heard a chilling scream in the distance. Even in the darkness of the night, Sam had seen Dean’s face turn pale at the sound. “Cas...” he had whispered. “That’s him.”

They had started making their way toward the source of the scream while they contemplated what they could possibly to do save Cas. The former angel was undoubtedly panicking, and he had no way to fight back without his powers or any type of weapon. Sam and Dean had assumed that it was the vampires who had taken their friend.

Now they stand at the edge of the woods, looking out to the farmhouse.

“Ready?” Dean asks.

Sam nods. “They’ve got to know we’re here. They can smell us. We might as well go.”

They step out into the open onto the frost-covered grass. It crunches under their boots as they make their way across the field. Sam clutches the long, curved blade in his hand as Dean pulls a syringe of dead man’s blood from his pocket and tucks it up into his sleeve. A horrifying scream erupts from the building ahead. Dean’s eyes go dark and he takes off running.

“Dean! Stop!” Sam yells after him.”You’re going to get yourself killed!” He sighs and starts running to catch up with his brother. Suddenly they’re close to the enough to the farmhouse that Sam can make out the shapes standing guard at the door. 

“Dean, wait!” he screams desperately. But he’s too late. Dean runs directly for the door and two dark shapes reach out to him. One vampire grabs Dean’s arm and another clutches him around the neck. Dean tries to reach up his sleeve for the syringe but one of the vampires knocks it out of his hand. 

“Sam,” Dean chokes, gasping for air.

That’s when a third vampire notices Sam and comes racing after him. For a moment, Sam is frozen- stuck between saving himself and running, and staying and trying to save his brother. Of course, the latter wins. Sam throws his blade far into the field behind him, trying to get it as far away from the vampires as possible. He puts his hands up in surrender and the vampire grabs him. 

“Well look who we have here,” it snarls. “Winchesters.”

The two vampires holding Dean let out a satisfied sound. 

“Before you ask how we know who you are…” one of them says, gripping Dean’s arm tighter.

The one holding his neck finishes the sentence. “Everyone knows who the Winchesters are. And what they do.”

They laugh maniacally. They’re both men, if vampires could even be considered to be men. The one with his arm around Dean’s neck is tall and almost as wide as Sam. His hair is cut short and his face is twisted into an expression that only reminded Sam of a wild animal. The other vampire is almost as tall as the first but not as well-built. His hair is long and hangs over crazed eyes in messy clumps.

Dean rolls his eyes. “What do you want from us?”

The vampire restraining Sam laughs hysterically. “What do we want from you? Well, we want you dead obviously. But that’s beside the point. The real question is, what do you want from us?” She grins and looks up at Sam. Messy blond hair falls across her face and Sam looks into her dark eyes with the most hatred he can manage.

Dean answers for him. “I think you know what we want from you.” His voice is tense and bitter.

“Oh, and what ever could that be?” The female asks with insincere curiosity. “You mean the man we have trapped in there? The one who’s convinced we won’t be able to hurt him because he’ll be rescued?”

Dean practically snarls and struggles against the grasp of the vampires.

“Dean!” Sam says. He tries to pull away from the vampire to get to his brother. The woman laughs and tightens her grip on Sam.

“You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart,” she coos in Sam’s ear.

Sam’s stomach churns. “Get off of me, you disgusting vermin!”

She laughs harder. “Oh, Sammy. Always a fighter. Always thinking you’re so superior. Always thinking you can save everyone.”

One of the vampires holding Dean turns to the one holding Sam. “Stop him, Eve,” he orders.

Eve flicks her hair over her shoulder and looks up at Sam innocently. “See you later, sweetheart.” She quickly swings her fist up to Sam’s head before he can realize what’s happening. He blacks out and falls to the ground.

“Sam!” Dean shouts. Then he is being dragged through the door and into the vampires’ nest.

 

Sam opens his eyes to find almost complete darkness. The only light comes from a small window on the side of the room. It’s still night, and the moon’s light streaming through the window illuminates the dust in the air. Sam tries to move but realizes that his arms are behind his back and tied around a wooden post. He’s trapped.

Sitting on the cold cement floor, his head is still spinning and his throat is dry as he struggles to breathe in the dust-filled room. It’s completely silent and he’s totally, utterly helpless. He opens his eyes the whole way and scans the room. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around, but he has to make sure.

“Dean?”

Sam’s voice echoes around the room. No one. He’s alone.

 

“Let me go, you bastards!” Dean struggles against the vampires pulling him down a cold, dark hallway. “What did you do with my brother?” He received no response. Typical. Damn vampires, he thinks.

He tries to escape the grasp of his captors but fails. His frustration builds and builds until the only thing he can think about is how these creatures have taken both his brother and his friend and they may not even be alive. “Let me go!” he screams, the sound of his furious voice bouncing off the walls.

It’s silent for a moment. Then Dean hears a voice, a voice he knows, come from the room down the hall.

“Dean? Is that you?” it asks. 

Dean stops struggling and freezes in the vampires’ grasp. “Cas?” he whispers. “Cas!” He yanks against the vampires so hard that he breaks free and they stumble back as he runs forward. He bursts into the room and stops, trying to catch his breath.

Castiel is tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Blood is smeared across his face in places and is clumped in his hair. He has a long, deep cut down one arm and the way that his left hand is twisted and hanging limp can’t be okay.

“Dean…” he whispers. 

Dean rushes over to his friend. “Cas, what did they do to you?”

“I…” his voice trails off as he looks beyond Dean. His eyes widen like he’s deep in thought. “It hurts.”

Dean swallows. Now that Cas is human, sensations like pain were new to him. Back when he was still an angel, he would have just willed himself into being healed. Nothing could have broken him. And now as Cas sits in front of Dean, looking so helpless, Dean can’t think of what to tell him, because nothing could ever make this okay.

“It’s okay, Cas. We’ll get you out of here.” He reaches over to start untying Cas’s hands. Before he can start, the two vampires Dean had just escaped from appeared behind him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the taller one snarls. The shorter one grabs Dean from behind and spins him around to face him.

“Where’s my brother?” Dean demands, his eyes staring into those of the vampire.

A sickening grin spreads across the creature’s face. “Okay,” he says simply. “You want to see your brother?”

The taller vampire starts to move toward the door. “You want me to bring him….” He glances at Dean with a wicked grin on his face, then turns to the other vampire. As he exits the room, he finishes: “You want me to bring him, John?” The word is chosen carefully.

Dean freezes. He looks at the vampire holding him. Its mouth is curled in an evil smile. Dean narrows his eyes. “Your name is not John.”

The vampire’s smile grows wider. “You bet it is.”

Dean lashes out in white-hot fury. “You’re lying, you bastard! I can fucking tell! My dad was John, you son of a bitch! And you are the scum of the earth, and you do not have the same name as my dad or the right to compare him to a disgusting piece of filth like you! You’re just some supernatural piece of shit just like the one that killed him! And if you’re doing this just to be funny, then you have made the wrong fucking decision, because I am done with this!” 

Dean breaks free from the vampire and reaches out to punch it in its hideous face. The vampire falls to the ground and momentarily clutches his face in pain. Then he slowly stands up and that stupid grin is still on his face.

“Ow,” the vampire says sarcastically. “That hurt.”

Suddenly Cas calls out. “Dean, I really think you should-” 

The other vampire enters the room, Sam in tow. 

“Sam!” Dean says. “Are you okay?” He tries to get to his brother but is held back by the vampire. Sam is led to the other side of the room and placed next to Cas. He doesn’t look nearly as bad as Cas does, but he’s still not in good shape.

The shorter vampire speaks first. “Let’s cut to the chase,” he says. “We’re giving you a choice, Dean.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “And what could that possibly be?”

“We’re going to let you go. You and… either Sam or Cas. You get to pick one. And we get to keep the other. It’s your choice, Dean. Your brother… or your little angel friend.”

“This is ridiculous!” Dean exclaims. “It’s not like you’d do it out of the kindness of your pathetic hearts.”

The vampire laughs. “It wouldn’t be any fun to just kill you all, would it? You’d be getting off way too easy. Instead… you get to pick between the two people you have left here and deal with it the rest of your life. Now that’s what I call torture!” 

Dean opens his mouth to protest and one of the vampires pulls out a huge, sharp knife and holds it to Sam’s throat. “Pick now, Dean, or we kill them both.”

The third vampire, Eve, emerges from the shadows in the corner of the room. She opens her mouth to reveal long and cruel fangs. They glint in the dim light as she walks calmly over to Cas. Castiel flinches and tries unsuccessfully to hide his fear. 

“Imagine how you’d taste, Castiel. The blood of a former angel’s vessel. Must be delicious.” She leans down to Cas’s face and looks into his eyes. “How would you like that? Going from angel to vampire? I could turn you.”

Dean looks between Cas and Sam, his mouth open and at a loss for words. He tries to formulate some sort of solution but for once his mind is blank. Out of the corner of his eye he notices Sam reaching slowly into his pocket. Sam shoots his brother a look. Dean obeys and distracts the vampires.

“Well, that’s not really going to work, you see…” Dean’s voice trails off. Keep it together, he tells himself. 

Sam is slowly pulling his hand back out of his pocket, something tightly clutched in his palm. Dean keeps talking.

“…I’m never going to pick, because…”

Suddenly Sam lashes out and reaches to jab something into the closest vampire’s neck. “Dead man’s blood,” he murmurs as the vampire drops to the ground.

The other male vampire is trying to escape, but Dean holds him down as Sam injects him with the poison. The vampire’s eyes flutter shut and he crashes to the floor. Just in time, Sam whirls around and injects the last bit of the blood into Eve as she tries to escape. She too plunges to the ground in a matter of seconds.

Sam and Dean look at each other, breathing heavily. Sam drops the empty syringe. “Nice work, Sammy.” Dean smiles.

“Um, Dean?” Cas calls from across the room. “A little help here?”

“Oh, yeah Cas, sorry.” Dean rushes to his friend and unties him. “Let’s get out of here before any more come.” He helps Cas up and the former angel leans on Dean.

“Dean…” Cas gasps. “I can’t…” His body goes limp and he falls against Dean.

“Whoa, Cas, buddy. You okay? Help me, Sammy. Let’s get him out of here.”

Sam helps carry Cas out of the farmhouse. As they’re walking back, Sam picks up the blade he threw earlier into the field. He runs his fingers along the cool metal and senses the conversation that’s coming next.

“Uh, Dean,” he finally says awkwardly. “Back there, if we hadn’t had a way out… It would’ve been okay if you picked Cas over me.”

Dean looks at his brother with disbelief. “Sammy, no. You know I couldn’t. Never would.”

Sam gives him a look like he doesn’t quite believe him. Cas stumbles next to Dean and leans on his shoulder.

Dean almost rolls his eyes. “Come on, Sam. Do you really think I would’ve let you die like that? I’ve been to hell and back for you, and you really think I’ll let you die at the hands of a few little vampires?”

Sam looks to the ground and sighs. They walk the rest of the way in silence.

 

By the time they get back to the Impala and begin the drive back to the motel, the sun is just beginning to inch up on the horizon. Dean looks up from the back seat of the Impala where he sits with Cas. Sam is driving silently, his face blank and devoid of any emotion. He stares straight ahead with both hands gripping the wheel tightly. After the events of the night before, the calm silence is welcome.

Dean turns back to Cas and realizes that Cas never did tell him what cruel things the vampires did to him. Being newly human, the experience had probably been especially traumatic for Castiel. Now with the former angel is laying across the back seat of the Impala in a deep sleep, just looking at him makes Dean’s chest ache with pity. With most of the blood cleaned off his face, he looks so innocent with his head resting on Dean’s thigh. He seems so utterly human and not at all like the powerful celestial being he had been just months ago. Long gone was the Castiel who could kill or bring life with just a simple touch.

Dean looks out the window to see countless trees being set aglow with the slanted morning sunlight. It’s the kind of morning where the sun seems to have a warm radiance to it that bathes the world in orange and peach and red and yellow. The air is cool and crisp with autumn, the kind of air that hurts to breathe but leaves you feeling alive and refreshed. 

Rays of the morning sun shine through the trees, across the road and into the Impala. Dean is momentarily blinded by the sudden wash of light. He looks down and sees the sun hitting Castiel’s face. The light weaves through his dark, messy hair and touches the soft skin of his face and the sun catches in his long eyelashes.

Dean slowly reaches down and touches a finger to Cas’s hair. He twirls a piece of it around his finger and watches as the sun lights it up to reveal the different shades of brown. For a long while, Dean lets himself relax for once while he is mesmerized by Castiel’s hair. He lets his mind wander and nearly dozes off in the weak warmth of the sun. As he slips further from consciousness, his thoughts begin to shift from the weather to the helpless fallen angel next to him. Dean never realizes that by the time he gives in to the temptation of sleep, Castiel is awake and studying him with bright blue eyes- human eyes that still, even now, watch over Dean as he rests.


End file.
